Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Pakatan Harapan (PH) Chairperson Datuk Christina Liew welcomed the statement of Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) Deputy Secretary-General Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali who wants the existing unity between the coalition and PH to continue in the next state election.
Nevertheless, the Api Api Assemblywoman feels it is too early to talk about election now and prefers to focus more on implementing her programmes and projects for the benefit of the people, especially in her constituency, and the State.
“Personally, I think that (Armizan’s suggestion) is a good because only through cooperation we will be able to work together...and we have been doing that since January 2023 until today.
“I find it very useful when we work as a team, to implement whatever projects, programmes and activities that we want to do.
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“If you want to ask me about the election, I don’t want to talk about it now because it is still far off. My focus for this year is to implement programmes and projects in my constituency.
“The others, when the time comes, we will sit down and discuss,” she said.
Armizan made the suggestion during the launch of the GRS Women’s Tour in Kota Marudu, on Saturday.
The Papar MP said although the top leadership of GRS has not yet discussed any collaboration formula for the polls, he has his views on the matter.
“Sabah and Sarawak have their own formulas, where, in essence, the current State Government in Sabah is a Unity Government with its own framework involving the GRS-PH Plus coalition,” he said.
Armizan, who is also Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) Minister, said the composition of the Sabah Government today, namely GRS-PH Plus, was formed after the establishment of the Unity Government at the federal level.
“This is the Unity Government formula in Sabah. In addition to GRS assemblymen, all PH assemblymen and some from other parties decided to support Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor as the Chief Minister of Sabah, and GRS greatly appreciates their support and solidarity,” he said.
He stressed that the formation of a government should not be based on “trend” factors or coercion but through consensus and mutual trust.
“On the part of GRS, we also want to avoid the risk of history repeating itself. When the elections come, we want to form a stable government through consensus.
“Not only does GRS need to trust our partners, but the other parties also need to be comfortable and confident with us,” he said.
To a question, Liew thinks that the GRS-PH Plus Government is functioning very well.
“But I am not sure about at the other areas, my focus is on some of the areas I have frequent communications with,” she said.
According to her, she had already informed quite a number of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) leaders in every areas that if they want to organise a programme to always include all the GRS-PH Plus component parties.
“For example, if I want to organise a programme in Kota Kinabalu, we also invite other component parties to join in. The same things happened when they organised a programme they will also invite us...so that we can work together.
“We cannot say everything is perfect but we have a target so we will work towards the target,” she said.
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